COLUMBUS, Ohio — The best ideas happen organically. This idea came from him after he had the best of intentions.
“I brought a toaster to school so I could make Pop-Tarts for me and my table during lunch,” Mateo Leahy said.
Two weeks ago, Leahy, 13, craving those delicious breakfast pastries, reached in his backpack and pulled out a toaster.
The teachers, he says, were cool about it and even helped him find an outlet. Another teacher, Mateo says, made a joke saying, “just don’t make a habit out of it.”
“Was your mom surprised when she kind of finds out you took a toaster without asking,” 10TV’s Bryant Somerville asked Mateo.
“Uh, yeah, she had no idea,” Mateo said. “She was pretty confused and surprised when she found out.”
“That’s one way of putting it, yeah,” Mateo’s mother, Elisa, said laughing. “I get a text from my husband after the kids get home saying that Mateo apparently took a toaster to school.”
Elisa Leahy thought it was funny and she thought others might think it was funny too, so she took to Twitter. And, overnight, the post exploded.
“It was like oh people like this,” she said. “Oh, people really like this. Oh, what is happening.”
More than 774,000 likes brought with it worldwide offers for the family to receive more Pop-Tarts. Leahy says she directed people, instead, to give to their local food bank.
“And then, that night, apparently the donation site crashed,” she said.
Even the company itself, Pop-Tarts, got involved by sending Mateo’s school, Indianola Informal K-8, 900 Pop-Tarts.
Friday at school was a celebration, Pop-Tarts in hand for the student body all because one student had his heart set on kindness.
“It’s just one of these things that we’ll never know all of the ripples,” Elisa said. “All of the effects of this one little thing, but it’s pretty cool.”